TucsonJim

Well, we have our shake down cruise completed, and discovered a few little problems that have mostly been resolved. So we headed out on our second trip to a country music festival about 75 miles from the house. It's five days of camping and country music with family and friends.

We arrived at the festival grounds in Florence Arizona last Wednesday at around 7am. After waiting in line and checking in at 9am, we were off to our assigned "camp site". The camping areas are set up in an alfalfa field that has recently been mowed, and each campsite is marked out on the ground. Since we were the first ones to arrive in our area of the campsite, it all looked fresh and inviting. So I turned on to the dirt road with the new truck and 337RLS. Just about the time the rear bumper passed over the edge of the dirt road, the entire rig sank down to the axles in MUD!! There was mud everywhere. I put the truck in 4wd and it wouldn't budge. We were as stuck as stuck can be. I invented a couple of brand new very colorful words. I tried 4WD-Hi, 4WD-Lo, rocking, bouncing, and couldn't move at all.

Come to find out, the organizers of the festival had flooded the alfalfa field two weeks earlier to "keep the dust down". Fortunately, they had a sinking feeling the field was still too wet and had tractors and tow straps ready just in case. They towed me through the 100 foot "wet zone", and I was on my way again to an uneventful parking job in the campsite. During the day, we saw over 30 rigs get stuck in various spots. But all of them were successfully pulled out of the muck. I think it will take me a good couple of days cleaning to get the truck and 337 cleaned up.

While we were at the festival with over 1000 rigs of various types, we never saw another Grand Design product. We gave lots of tours to curious campers, and answered lots of questions about the "pretty beige FW". When people remarked how big it was, I told them you ought to see its big brother the Solitude. But even so, it is one very long rig when it's all hitched up. I measured the truck and FW at 52'7" from bumper to bumper. During this second trip with the 337, we didn't find anything else that needs to be fixed!

The music festival was a lot of fun with groups like the Band Perry, Thompson Square, Miranda Lambert and Jason Aldean. We've already booked for next year, but we hope the ground is a little drier.